Antiques and the Arts Weekly
"A New England Artist in Key West"
Published by The Bee Publishing Co, Inc., Newton, Connecticut
December 15, 1995

Clarke Shows Blodgett Drawings To Jan, 1

PALM BEACH, FLA - Through January 1, The Clarke Galleries will host an exhibition of drawings done in 1936 by Vermont Artist Walton Blodgett (1908-1963).

The Pencil drawings were made in Blodgett's sketchbooks dyrign his visit to Key West, Fla., as part of the WPA project.

Blodgett's pencil drawings provide an intimate view of Key West in the 1930s. With clothes-lined bungalows, Spanish influenced architecture, fishing boats, piers and cars, Blodgett skillfully recorded a working Florida fishing village of the past. His human figure, active within the small town environment, provide both a sense of scale and sense of narrative human interaction.

As a narrative Notherner, Blodgett remained true to the New England landscape painter's sense of majesty of nature. He was fascinated by the lushness of Florida's vegetation. Many of the drawings despict the bending palms and giant, gnarled trees, which both offer shade and threatened to take over the architecture. Blodgett's buildings sometimes seem incidental; they are merely a backdrop for the tropical trees.

The artist was a master of the sketchbook. His drawings are detailed and careully ovserved, yet the yappear to be rapidly executed and spontaneous. "He took sketchbooks with him wherever he went, and ysed them as a record of his trabels," says Blodgett's widow, Mrs. Alice Blodgett, her husband "never considered himself a part of any movement."

While a student at the Grand Central Art school in New York City, Blodgett became one of the favored ones chosen to join the group who accompanied well-known painter George Luks on his painting rounds. This was toward the end of the period known as the Ash Can movement, of which Luks was a foremost member. The Ash Can outlook included a celebratory and optimistic look at industry, growth, and the changing of the landscape.

"Much of this outlook did rub off on Walton," says Mrs. Blodgett, "You can see that in his forthright and realistic approach to the subject he drew and painted, and his strong sense of contrast and values."

Both his Ash Can training and his New England roots are evident in his drawing done in Key West in the 1930s. With simple and quick strokes, he captured the coastal light and the forces of nature, and gave us a personal glimpse into his past, and into the past Key West.